Tag: the bavarian

“You have both been – obviously wrongly – locked in an asylum,” says Toby.

I cast a sideways glance at the Bavarian, who could probably quite legitimately be sent to a mad house.

We are in the ‘Briefing Room’ of a former East Berlin bunker. The chairs are hard. The map across from us shows the sprawling territory of the USSR. Most of the furniture is original, from the 1970s, when the bunker was built.

Toby is telling us how EXIT game works; we will be shown into a room, and need to solve a series of puzzles and clues to find a route out of the asylum before a madman hunts us down and, well, game over. Grand. Just the kind of game for the Bavarian and I to tackle in our lunch break.

Half an hour later, I’m sweating over a Ouija board while the Bavarian fiddles with a lock. Edith Piaf is playing, we’re surrounded by skulls and the timer is counting down on a digital display behind us.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to get out of here,” sighs the Bavarian.

Yes, the game was more difficult than we imagined. Either that, or we’re stupider than we imagined. According to the game-masters only 66 % of players manage to break out. In addition to being brain-intensive, the game’s setting gives it an extra edge. The macabre props and oppressive atmosphere of the bunker make you feel like you’re trapped in a horrific b-movie.

It is a smartly designed, immersive experience. Mad House, the game we played, is the most popular, but I’m determined to try one of the others (Secret Prison, Alien Invasion and Hackers Home Reloaded) and win. I hate losing. Of course, that means the Bavarian and I will have to do some serious training before we attempt it. Now, where’s that Sudoku book…

He does that sometimes. Repeats things. Last week, he came home perplexed because two people, independently of each other, said he had autistic traits.

“Soundpainting,” I say.

“Aha,” he says, eyebrows creased, nodding gravely.

I know what the next question is going to be.

Soundpainting is a live-composing sign language. The soundpainter (composer / conductor) uses gestures to direct a musicians, actors, dancers and artists in an improvised performance. It’s a thing.

Last night, the Berlin Soundpainting Orchestra teamed up with the Swedish Soundpainting Orchestra for a performance at NK in Neukölln. The performance was supposed to start at 8.30. At 8.30 a couple of old-timers from Afro-American jazz collective The Pyramids were talking about how 1968 was an interesting year; Martin Luther King, Kennedy, the Vietnam War. That’s what you get when you go out in Neukölln.

Thankfully, you’re also never far from a beer in Neukölln. Another couple of beers got us to 1972, Besançon,1974, San Francisco – the moderator was not doing his job. I had never heard of The Pyramids, but now I’m an expert. If you ever see them, don’t give them a microphone.

Finally, it was time for soundpainting. The performance began in the courtyard. At least, I think it began. It was hard to tell whether the musicians were just warming up. A guy made sounds crushing a plastic water bottle; another shook a colander.

The performance moved upstairs, where two soundpainters directed two different groups in different areas of the hall. Each one seemed to make sense on its own, but clashed with the other. You could walk between them, and grab a beer on the way.

Finally, we moved into a space where the orchestra arranged itself in front of the audience. There were seats. One sound-painter took charge, and something happened. It started working. The soundpainter made gestures, the orchestra followed, performers moved, stories formed from sounds.

It became clear that the musicians could play and the singers could sing. They knew what they were doing, but they were doing it with abandon – playing, plucking, banging their instruments in unusual ways, using their voices to sing, shout, whisper, murmur and make animal sounds. Everyday noises and props were brought into the composition.

Out of cacophony, emerged music. It was like walking down a busy street, and hearing a symphony drift down to you from an open window, or like listening to a radio being tuned. What was happening? And what surprising thing were we going to hear or see next?

It was engaging, funny, weird, and weirdly satisfying.

Also, it was educational. I picked up the soundpainting gesture for ‘be quiet’ – maybe I’ll start using it on The Bavarian.

In fact, so many famous people have ties to Weimar that it’s littered with signs like this:

And this:

And you get the feeling that the Weimarians are simply showing off.

The most famous resident of Weimar was Goethe. There are so many references to him in the city that The Bavarian and I started playing the ‘Goethe-Game’, where you gained a point for screaming ‘Goethe’ every time you saw his face or name. (I would record the winner, but really, it’s the taking part that counts…)

As we continued to tour Weimar screaming ‘Goethe’, we saw Schiller’s residence, Goethe’s garden house, ate a traditional Thüringer Rostbratwurst at the market square (Markt) and enjoyed coffee and cake at Cafe Frauentor.

The Elephant Hotel is the place to stay in Weimar. It was established in 1696 and has a reputation for being a social and cultural meeting point for poets, artists and intellectuals. Thomas Mann immortalised the hotel in Lotte in Weimar and was a guest, as was Wagner, Feininger, Ahner and others.

Of course, that was why I wanted to stay at The Elephant. The Bavarian wanted to stay there because of the eggs – specifically the eggs in a glass. He had stayed at the Hotel Fuerstenhof in Leipzig once, which belongs to the same hotel group, and has been going on about eggs in a glass ever since. I had no idea what he was talking about, but when you’re married to a nutter, you learn to nod and not ask too many questions.

After dinner, we prowled the hotel floors examining the Baselitz and Liebermann prints on the walls, and the exhibition about the hotel’s history – where this photo of Hitler at The Elephant was displayed – on the first floor.

We stumbled across the suites (all named after esteemed guests) and discovered that a couple with a dog were staying in the Thomas Mann suite, sending The Bavarian into a tirade about how a dog had a better room than him, although it was kind of fitting because Thomas Mann was fond of dogs.

I had to admit though, while sitting in front of my shrimp omelette topped with caviar and watching the Bavarian delicately spoon a soft-boiled egg covered with truffle foam from a little glass, that he was right about the breakfast.

– Satisfied? Will you stop going about eggs in a glass now? I asked.

– Yes. This is better than the other place – it’s a Wagenfeld glass. From now on, I will only talk of one egg, in a Wagenfeld glass.

Due to our early start, we were able to get a ticket to visit the Anna Amalia Library (there’s a limit to how many are sold per day, so be there early if you’d like a slot).

The library houses an impressive collection focusing on German literature around 1800, and its Rococo Hall (right) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As well as old books, there are items from the library’s cabinet of curiosities, paintings and sculptures.

The last thing we had time for before catching our train back was a visit to the Bauhaus Museum, which has a great collection of art and design works from the school, as well as information about its history and development.

I occasionally tweet random things that the Bavarian says to me under the tag #ThingsMyGermanHusbandSaidToday which I thought I’d collect under one blog post for those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (why not?!)…

Like this:

The Bavarian is really into planes. When he books a flight, he takes the aircraft model into consideration. Sometimes, he makes me play ‘guess the flight’; we live under a Tegel flight path and the game consists of guessing where passing planes are going. I always lose because The Bavarian has memorised the flight timetable. Occasionally, he will randomly inform me if a flight is delayed.

It turns out that he is not alone. This week thousands of people went to Schoenefeld to visit ILA, the Berlin aerospace fair that occurs every two years.

ILA took place at Schoenefeld, where the big new Berlin airport was supposed to open in 2011, but due to gross incompetence is still nowhere near completion. One highlight was the Emirates’ Airbus A380-800, which, The Bavarian informs me, is used for ultra long haul flights (for example Dubai to Los Angeles). People queued for hours to see the inside, which is something I will never understand, but in the end, I have to admit that the size and capabilities of the technology on show was impressive.

There were civilian and military aircraft, helicopters, drones and satellites on display on the ground as well as spectacular shows happening in the air. Here are my ILA highlights:

The US Ambassador (the guy with the jumper around his neck) and his wife arrive at the ILA

Comco Ikarus C42b, Grasshoppers

The A400M, a brand new military tactical airlifter

Flight deck of the A400M

EC135 helicopter, used for polic and amulance services

NFH90, marine helicopter

Sagitta Demonstrator, fully autonomous research demonstrator

2 Airbus Helicopters Tiger EC665

People queuing to see inside the Emirates A380-800

Going to the upper deck to visit Business and First Class on the Emirates A380-800

The Bavarian and I have recently finished watching HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and have started watching Rome. We tend to get immersed in our dramas. While watching Boardwalk Empire, which is about boot-legging in 1920s prohibition era America, we got through one bottle of Laphroig and three bottles of Woodford Reserve. Rome, set in the 1st century BC during Ancient Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire, is more difficult. In lieu of being able to buy slaves, raise armies, or crucify people, we settled on going out for a nice Italian.

This may sound simpler than buying slaves, raising armies, or crucifying people, but finding a good Italian restaurant is no easy task – even in Italy. I once stayed with an Italian family in Montalto di Castro, about 2 hours from Rome, and when we visited the capital, we did not eat. According to them, the restaurants in Rome were for tourists; most of them were not run by proper Italians, and they did not use good tomatoes. It was not until that night, when we got to the pizzeria down the road from where they lived, that we finally got to eat.

So, the rules are clear; the restaurant should be local, run by Italians and use good produce. Mami Camilla in Bötzowviertel, Prenzlauer Berg, ticks all these boxes.

It’s a quiet place. Simply decorated, softly lit, with solid wooden tables and background music that does not try to compete with the sound of conversation or the clink of cutlery.

The food has a strong South Italian influence; the owner is from the Amalfi Coast and the chef is from Puglia. They get special produce delivered from Italy as well as adapting their dishes to suit the season (working with berries in the summer, pumpkin in the autumn).

For starters (between €10-15) we had burrata, an Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream, with apples, and cardoncello mushrooms baked with pecorino cheese, for the mains (between €15-25) the Bavarian enjoyed swordfish with baked red pepper and squid tagliolini, while I experienced the best ravioli I’ve ever tasted (made with rosemary, lemon-zest and goats cheese, topped with berries). For dessert (between €5-10) we shared a tiramisu. To accompany, we had a bottle of Negroamaro Primitivo from Puglia.

The fact that everything is freshly made to a high-quality is reflected in the price and the time it takes to make certain dishes. It’s worth it, but if you don’t feel like going all out, they also have a wide selection of excellent, regularly-priced pizzas – made Neapolitan style.

There’s something for everyone, so the clientele range from couples to groups of friends and families with children. It’s refreshing to find a place like this that has a relaxed atmosphere and friendly service.

The Bavarian’s verdict: “You can say what you like about the Italians, but they know what they’re doing when it comes to food.”

Like this:

On Sunday, The Bavarian and I previewed some works that are to be sold over the next week at one of Berlin’s finest auction houses – Villa Grisebach in Charlottenburg – because the Bavarian has registered to bid in their Autumn Auction.

He dragged me from room to room and floor to floor, past stone statues from the Song Dynasty and 19th Century Berlin-made hanging crystals, pointing at things like this – “Kneipe” by Käthe Kollwitz, expected to fetch between €70,000 – 90,000:

“It looks like that guy from Boardwalk Empire. I like Broadwalk Empire. I’ll make a note of the number,“ he enthused at the painting above by Conrad Felixmüller, estimated at between €40.000 – 60.000, before dragging me across the road to the contemporary exhibits and settling on a Daniel Richter:

“No. I told her that I was considering bidding for something in the under €3,000 category and she agreed that there was no point in checking our bank statements for such a small amount.”

“Oh, so you can only bid in that category,” I said, kind of relieved that at least there was a limit to how much damage he could do.

“No – that’s just what I told her. Technically, I can still bid on whatever I like!”

Great. Now my entire week has become a mission to distract him from this auction that he is set, not only on going to, but participating in. He’s even honed in on a particular piece he likes by Berlin artist Georg Tappert (1880 – 1957), called called “Clown and Girl”, which appropriately sums up our relationship: